Lsherm:It's not "cloud computing" - it's DRM. SimCity should work just fine as a standalone single player game.

Yep, that's why I refuse to buy it. The only thing that should be "online" about that game is server storage for your maps. And it should be optional (i.e. you can store your cities locally on your hard drive AND/OR upload a copy for protection/sharing if you choose).

Clock is ticking for these guys, it's not like there is a dearth of entertainment options to turn to. You lose the people that were actually interested enough to buy at launch and you're on the monorail to Failton Heights.

I've been playing EA games since the Commodore 64 days, and because of that i've been slow to condemn them for a number of bad moves in the last decade. But this marks the point where i'm going to be all "fark EA" from now on.

ThatGuyGreg:Lsherm: It's not "cloud computing" - it's DRM. SimCity should work just fine as a standalone single player game.

It's not a single player game anymore.

And that's the shame of it all really. Will there ever be single player games again? Or will the industry's hard on for piracy...er secondary markets...er security, its security right?...mean the age of the single player game is over?

Will everything we play in the future have to be hooked into our Facebook/Twitter Social Media Profile in order to run? I have to say I'll be amazed if after three decades of gaming the farking gaming industry finally kills my enjoyment of games by forcing everything online so they can kill GameStop.

I don't want my game hooked to my Facebook account so you can spam my friends. I don't want to have an Internet connection always on in order to play games in which I don't interact with other players except by force from the developers (why hello there Diablo III). And sometimes I just feel like playing by myself without the hassle that comes from the online community.

When I was the kids' age we played games completely contained on our cartridges damnit! We didn't have fancy online micro transactions and that's the way we liked it!

scottydoesntknow:Yep, that's why I refuse to buy it. The only thing that should be "online" about that game is server storage for your maps. And it should be optional (i.e. you can store your cities locally on your hard drive AND/OR upload a copy for protection/sharing if you choose).

If it was like Skyrim or other Steam games, with automatic online backups and updates but with the option to play offline and no "Log in to the server" ridiculousness, that would be fine - but yeah, this is pants-on-head retarded. I was going to buy this, but I'll be spending my money on a used copy of SimCity 2000 instead, I think.

js34603:Will there ever be single player games again? Or will the industry's hard on for piracy...er secondary markets...er security, its security right?...mean the age of the single player game is over?

Thankfully, what's currently happening is an indie game revolution, as the big game developers lose their way.

js34603:ThatGuyGreg: Lsherm: It's not "cloud computing" - it's DRM. SimCity should work just fine as a standalone single player game.

It's not a single player game anymore.

And that's the shame of it all really. Will there ever be single player games again? Or will the industry's hard on for piracy...er secondary markets...er security, its security right?...mean the age of the single player game is over?

Will everything we play in the future have to be hooked into our Facebook/Twitter Social Media Profile in order to run? I have to say I'll be amazed if after three decades of gaming the farking gaming industry finally kills my enjoyment of games by forcing everything online so they can kill GameStop.

I don't want my game hooked to my Facebook account so you can spam my friends. I don't want to have an Internet connection always on in order to play games in which I don't interact with other players except by force from the developers (why hello there Diablo III). And sometimes I just feel like playing by myself without the hassle that comes from the online community.

When I was the kids' age we played games completely contained on our cartridges damnit! We didn't have fancy online micro transactions and that's the way we liked it!

Indie developers are getting a larger and larger share of the market, and kick starter funded games are just starting to become reality. The days of the big game companies screwing over their consumers at every possible turn are coming to an end.

I was excited about the new Sim City until I heard more and more about the online only, social media scheme. Many of the options in previous versions of the game are missing. I'm sure that these will be added in latter as DLC. Why would I pay you full price for a basic game and then pay you for half a dozen DLC's just to get a whole game? I expected a complete working game for my sixty dollars. No thank you. You will not get my money today.

The game is really fun, when you can play it. As for it being DRM, I'm inclined to disagree. The region level agent simulations are run on the EA servers. It's not Sim City 4.5, it's a wholly different game, to be honest. It's a very hard game, too. Which I like. Think more like Sim Manhattan instead of Sim Houston.

kurr:The game is really fun, when you can play it. As for it being DRM, I'm inclined to disagree. The region level agent simulations are run on the EA servers. It's not Sim City 4.5, it's a wholly different game, to be honest. It's a very hard game, too. Which I like. Think more like Sim Manhattan instead of Sim Houston.

For someone that wants to play solo, there's no reason the games couldn't be hosted locally.

And a Sim game where I can't rain down disasters and reload an old save? No, thanks.

I think the saddest thing I'm reading is that your city is only saved to their servers - you can't just smite the city when you feeling peevish IRL then go back and reload - can anyone confirm that you pretty much get one pass at these things?

BumpInTheNight:ThatGuyGreg: Lsherm: It's not "cloud computing" - it's DRM. SimCity should work just fine as a standalone single player game.

It's not a single player game anymore.

Its clearly no longer part of the SimCity series either, but here we are.

Its not SimCity 5, its SimCity. Its the gritty reboot where they don't use a number but the same title of the original. The rules have changed.

The problem with doing that is that there was a lot of people out there who wanted SimCity 5, and that's not exactly what has been delivered here. What has been delivered might end up being a good game, or maybe not. But it probably needs 6+ months of maturation before it will really work right.

Anyone foolish enough to pay sixty dollars for a game that they don't own and that they must play while always logged onto EA servers deserves this. Maybe people had an excuse for buying Diablo III, but after seeing the downside of all-intrusive DRM on that game, there is no reason that anyone should have bothered to do anything but pirate this game.

js34603:ThatGuyGreg: Lsherm: It's not "cloud computing" - it's DRM. SimCity should work just fine as a standalone single player game.

It's not a single player game anymore.

And that's the shame of it all really. Will there ever be single player games again? Or will the industry's hard on for piracy...er secondary markets...er security, its security right?...mean the age of the single player game is over?

Will everything we play in the future have to be hooked into our Facebook/Twitter Social Media Profile in order to run? I have to say I'll be amazed if after three decades of gaming the farking gaming industry finally kills my enjoyment of games by forcing everything online so they can kill GameStop.

I don't want my game hooked to my Facebook account so you can spam my friends. I don't want to have an Internet connection always on in order to play games in which I don't interact with other players except by force from the developers (why hello there Diablo III). And sometimes I just feel like playing by myself without the hassle that comes from the online community.

When I was the kids' age we played games completely contained on our cartridges damnit! We didn't have fancy online micro transactions and that's the way we liked it!

Which leads to my question, who cares? There are already more games out there than one could play in a lifetime, or a hundred lifetimes. Hell I was poking around in a couple of boxes the other day and found my usb Wingman controllers, and then decided that I would fire up my Atari 800 emulator. My wife and I were playing a game of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for a couple of hours. She had never played the game and was having a great time once we got it rolling. I have boxes full of games just for that system alone. They could stop making games right this second and I still have enough games laying around the house to keep me from ever leaving the house again until I am dead.

Smelly McUgly:Anyone foolish enough to pay sixty dollars for a game that they don't own and that they must play while always logged onto EA servers deserves this. Maybe people had an excuse for buying Diablo III, but after seeing the downside of all-intrusive DRM on that game, there is no reason that anyone should have bothered to do anything but pirate this game.

Pretty much.

I'm not going to pirate it, though, I'm just not going to play it. I still have SC 2000 that I bought off GoG.com for 5 bucks. It's fun, it works right, it works now, and it will work forever because it doesn't include "features" that realistically only exist as a mechanism for preventing me from playing what I paid for either by error or intent.

There are just too many classic and indie games available that aren't asking me to bend over and grab my ankles so a bunch of suits who never even like games to begin with can take turns riding me like a cheap whore as part of the EULA. I'll just go ahead and play them instead, thanks.

/ Skyrim is the only non-MMO PC game I've bought in years that wasn't indie or oldie// gamers are stupid, stupid people though and will learn nothing from this just as they've learned nothing from any other massive DRM failure and corporate screwjob over the last decade

Fluorescent Testicle:scottydoesntknow: Yep, that's why I refuse to buy it. The only thing that should be "online" about that game is server storage for your maps. And it should be optional (i.e. you can store your cities locally on your hard drive AND/OR upload a copy for protection/sharing if you choose).

If it was like Skyrim or other Steam games, with automatic online backups and updates but with the option to play offline and no "Log in to the server" ridiculousness, that would be fine - but yeah, this is pants-on-head retarded. I was going to buy this, but I'll be spending my money on a used copy of SimCity 2000 instead, I think.

skozlaw:I still have SC 2000 that I bought off GoG.com for 5 bucks. It's fun, it works right, it works now, and it will work forever because it doesn't include "features" that realistically only exist as a mechanism for preventing me from playing what I paid for either by error or intent.

I love GoG. I just picked up Alpha Centauri complete with the Alien Crossfire add-on for five bucks total. No DRM, downloaded straight to my computer.

I need to go back and play some of those mid-'90s, late-'90s, and early '00s PC games that I did not play because I had a dinky computer and was heavily a console gamer. I should really look around GoG.

Do the needful:Which leads to my question, who cares? There are already more games out there than one could play in a lifetime, or a hundred lifetimes. Hell I was poking around in a couple of boxes the other day and found my usb Wingman controllers, and then decided that I would fire up my Atari 800 emulator. My wife and I were playing a game of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for a couple of hours. She had never played the game and was having a great time once we got it rolling. I have boxes full of games just for that system alone. They could stop making games right this second and I still have enough games laying around the house to keep me from ever leaving the house again until I am dead.

Yes, by all means, enough books have been written, enough movies have been made, enough television series have run their course . Why strive for anything better or different ever again when we and all further generations can sit back and bludgeon ourselves with nostalgia. Idiot.